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Learn@Illinois Moodle - Managing Permissions with Roles
Learn how to manage role permissions within Moodle. A permission is the ability to do something on the site (like view a file or change a grade). A role is a collection of permissions defined for the whole system that you can assign to specific users in specific contexts. The combination of roles and context define a specific user's ability to do something on any page. The most common examples are the roles of Student and Teacher in the context of a course.
For a permanent link to this information, please use: http://go.illinois.edu/MoodleRoles
Site Roles
Outside of support staff, most users will have the same permissions on Learn@Illinois. They may have different permissions in particular courses based on their course roles.
Course Roles
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Student: Students generally have fewer privileges within a course. This is largely dependent on the settings in the course.
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Test Student: This is modified copy of the student role. This would be used to test courses from a student perspective especially when a course or module is hidden from students. Often teachers are still developing course material when students are already enrolled in the course and the course is still hidden. This makes testing from a student perspective difficult.
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Super Student: This is a copy of the student role that an instructor can modify for their purposes in their course. If teachers need to give particular students enhanced capabilities in the course, they can use this role. It can also be used for students with accommodations who may need custom settings on course modules.
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Undergraduate Intern: This is a copy of the student role. Since courses use undergraduate interns or mentors in different ways, these permissions should be modified at the course or category level.
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Observer: People who are observing the course in the background. These users will not have the ability to see student work, grades, or to alter the course in any way.
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Non-Editing Teacher: Non-editing teachers can teach in courses and grade students, but may not alter activities.
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Non-Teaching Editor: Non-teaching editors can edit any activity in a course, but cannot grade students or see student data.
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Teacher: Teachers can do anything within a course, including changing the activities and grading students.
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Course Administrator: This role is a copy of the teacher role to give to people who need teacher access to courses, but should not show up in list of teachers.
Students, Undergrad Interns, and Super Students
If you have made no changes to your course site, these roles are the same. You can modify the Super Student or Undergraduate Intern roles to have increased permissions to fit your needs. If you want a student to be able to take attendance and enter it into the course, you would allow those roles to have that permission.
Teachers, Course Administrators, Non-Editing Teachers, and Non-Teaching Editors
A Teacher or a Course Administrator in a course has the ability to view and alter almost everything on their course site. They can add files and users, view logs, etc. The difference between a Teacher and a Course Administrator is that a Teacher is listed as an instructor the course, while a Course Administrator is not. There is no reason to have both the Teacher and Course Administrator role.
A Non-Editing Teacher can view everything that a Teacher can and use the gradebook, but they don't have the ability to alter activities and resources. This role is useful if you do not want the user to be able to alter course content, but it does mean that the user will not be able to add any files to the course.
A Non-Teaching Editor can view and edit any activity and see how the gradebook is set up, but cannot see student data, including who is enrolled in the course, what grades have been given out, or any work a student has submitted, including forum posts. This is useful when you have someone working in your course who should be able to edit activities (for example, changing deadlines or updating a list of websites) but who should not be able to see sensitive information.